


you're on the tip of my tongue

by winteryknights (BlackcatNamedlucky)



Series: decide on us [1]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: 5 Things, Coming Out, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Sort Of, Team as Family, don't worry about the timeline it makes sense i swear, takes em a while to get there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27991446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackcatNamedlucky/pseuds/winteryknights
Summary: aka 4 times Buck and Eddie try to tell their friends about their relationship + 1 time they all figure it out on their own
Relationships: Eddie Diaz & Firehouse 118 Crew (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley & Firehouse 118 Crew, Evan "Buck" Buckley & Maddie Buckley, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Series: decide on us [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2077251
Comments: 16
Kudos: 331





	you're on the tip of my tongue

i.  
They had a whole plan, the first time. It was a week after they’d told Bobby, gone over all the policies about inter-departmental romance, and filed the requisite paperwork, and it felt like a good time. A safe time.

There was a _speech_ Eddie was going to make, about how this wouldn’t change anything at work, they weren’t suddenly going to be all over each other in their downtime, and their behavior wouldn’t change on calls when one might be in danger. They had always been Buck-and-Eddie(-and-Christopher), if anyone cared to think about it too hard. They’d just gone the extra step of adding a label.

And a few...other things, that no one at work needed to know about, and _no, Buck, it’s not happening in the showers, no matter how hot the risk makes it._

The point was, they had a plan. They’d had this plan for _weeks_. Christopher had helped, sort of, if you counted him offering to write down the plan for them and coming back with a drawing of them holding hands with a big pink heart around them as helping. Buck and Eddie did. They’d framed it. And they’d gotten Bobby to make dinner at the same time Athena got off her shift so she could come by and not be left out of the loop! Maddie was on her way, _right then!_

And, of course, because this was _fucking_ Los Angeles, and their lives weren’t hard enough already, right then the ground started to rumble, and the alarms were going off, and the dinner? That was toast.

They hadn’t even been able to set the table.

It wasn’t as bad as the last one, and _that_ was a relief. It was only a couple of hours before Eddie’s shift ended, and he was able to get off on time to pick Christopher up from school and go back to their, thankfully still intact, home.

Buck had taken up a longer shift, because of _course_ he had, but in the end, it was almost a moot point. Barely an hour after Eddie and Chris got home and each fell asleep before their heads even hit their pillows, Buck was letting himself into the house and curling around Eddie.

“I think,” he’d said, after Eddie greeted him with a tired hello and a kiss to the hand interlaced with his own. “Maybe we should go from a more casual angle, next time.”

ii.  
Well, next time, Chimney was looking at Eddie’s phone over his shoulder while they were both waiting for the coffee maker to be done and saw that he was on the U-Haul website.

“You and Chris thinking about moving?” he’d asked, elbowing Eddie out of the way once the machine beeped out its announcement that the coffee was all brewed, earning himself an indignant huff in response.

And then, Eddie had realized this was the perfect opportunity. “No, actually,” he’d started, gratefully accepting the second cup of coffee Chimney had poured. “Buck’s moving in when his lease is up at the end of the month.” 

And he’d braced himself for the question, although he wasn’t entirely sure why. But it never came.

“Oh, it’ll be nice to have help paying the bills, huh? And with Christopher.”

Oh, right. Chimney was thinking about these things now, with his own impending fatherhood and all. Still, there had to be a way Eddie could get this back on track. 

“Well, yes, but-”

And of course, he didn’t have the chance, because _right then_ , Chimney’s phone had rung, Maddie’s name and face lighting up his screen, and he’d nearly dropped his coffee in his attempt to pick it up right away.

“Sorry, Eddie, let us know if you two are gonna need help with anything,” he’d said, backing out of the room, and Eddie had given him a tired salute with his coffee cup.

“What was all that?” Buck had asked, after having nearly been run over by Chimney on his way to the coffee maker, looking between Eddie and the door Chimney had just disappeared through.

“That,” he’d said, pouring Buck a cup of coffee, dumping about a quarter cup of sugar in it (and really, _who_ takes their coffee like that), and passing it his way before leaning back against the counter. “That was our casual angle, going right out the window,” he’d finished, clinking his mug against Buck’s.

iii.  
Still, they kept trying. You had to give them credit for that, it wasn’t _their_ fault their friends were just being so _incredibly_ oblivious.

It was Hen, the next time. She’d sat down next to Buck during an off-hour and assumed the paperwork he was doing was some report that Bobby had shuffled on down to him in exchange for a weekend off. It wasn’t until she’d noticed the letterhead came from Christopher’s school that she got off her phone (and, if you ask her, she absolutely was not still playing _Candy Crush_ , but if you ask her phone’s screentime tracker, she absolutely was) and asked what he was doing.

“Filling out these forms to be listed as a guardian at Chris’ school, just in case anything happens to Eds,” Buck had answered, absentmindedly, scribbling down his signature and flipping over a page before groaning. “You must’ve done stuff like this for Denny,” he’d said, leaning back in his chair and running a hand through his already disheveled hair, “what the hell does all this mean?”

Hen had been too baffled by the contract suddenly being shoved in her face to ask the specifics of _why_ Buck was getting himself designated as a legal guardian of Eddie’s child, much less to make the connection between this and their moving in together last month.

And later, well, she’d guessed after all the near-misses those boys had been having, it was probably for the best.

Buck, though, when he’d realized his missed opportunity, had dramatically thrown himself onto his and Eddie’s bed, boots halfway to shucked off, and groaned long enough that it drew Eddie’s attention from the bathroom.

He’d popped into the room, toothbrush still dangling from his mouth, pulled Buck’s boots the rest of the way off, and asked what was wrong.

“I’m an _idiot_ ,” Buck had said, then opened one accusatory eye when Eddie didn’t contradict him.

“Whatever it was, I’m sure we can fix it,” Eddie had reassured him, sounding so earnest that Buck had just groaned again.

When he finally heard the story, Eddie couldn’t stop laughing until Buck kissed it away.

iv.  
Buck would almost be offended that Maddie hadn’t picked up on it by that point, were she not heavily pregnant and dealing with moving in with Chimney and setting up the nursery. A small part of him wondered if she’d known and just decided to be tactful about it until they told her themselves.

Regardless, she and Chimney had invited the 118, plus one Josh, one son, two spouses, and one ex over to their house when they’d finally settled in, and _that_ was going to be the night Buck _finally_ told her.

Well.

Okay.

Let’s start from the beginning.

He’d gotten there early, when he knew Chimney would still be at work, ready to help with whatever food preparation and decorating still needed to be done, and ready to be _out with it_. And he’d been _so close_ , after Maddie had made a comment about how it must be hard dating when he was living with his best friend, and his best friend’s 10-year-old son, and, hey, wasn’t Eddie’s place a two-bedroom? 

But he can’t say he’s _upset_ about how the next few minutes played out, what kind of uncle would he be then?

Because right after she’d asked this, she’d cried out, and then her water had broken, and then they were in an ambulance on the way to the nearest hospital. Buck had her on the phone with a panicking Chimney, who was trying very hard not to distract Hen as she drove them from the station to the hospital, and all thoughts of Evan Buckley’s love life had gone out the window, for everyone involved.

But Buck did catch how Eddie had looked at him, the next day, when he’d held baby Hana in his arms for the first time. Eddie’s eyes had gone impossibly soft and his smile had glowed, and Buck had decided that, however long it took for their friends to figure it out, this would be worth the wait.

He would always be worth it.

v.  
How it finally happens is this:

Buck is working a 24-hour shift on his birthday, and he hasn’t mentioned a thing about it. When Hen had asked him if he had after-work plans the day before, he’d only shrugged and said he hadn’t really thought of anything, he’d probably just go for beers with Eddie and make him pay for them.

Chimney, obviously, cannot let this stand, not after the year Buck’s had. It’s just not right. So, he plans a nice family dinner with Bobby, gets him a cake from that bakery up the street he likes, invites Maddie and Athena, asks Carla to bring Christopher by, and pulls it all off in less than a day. He’s pretty damn proud of himself for it, too.

The plan is set in action when Buck goes to sleep off a particularly arduous call, involving _far_ too many moose for _Southern California_. It was all going perfectly smoothly, too, except no one has seen Eddie for the past hour, and Chimney’s getting _antsy_. There’s no way he could have forgotten, right?

He does another sweep of the station, sighs, and allows Bobby to convince him just to go in already, Eddie not being there won’t ruin the surprise, so they all gather at the door to the bunk room and agree to shout ‘happy birthday’ when Chimney opens it.

So he does.

And the cheer dies on his lips when they walk into the bunks to see, well,

“Found Eddie,” Hen supplies (unhelpfully, Chimney might add), causing the man himself to look in their direction from where he is on one of the beds at the far end of the room, straddling Buck’s hips, hair mussed and lips bruised and looking positively _debauched_.

Chimney nearly drops the cake.

Buck blushes bright red and buries his face in Eddie’s chest, and the entire room erupts into questions of _when did this start?!_ and _how did this happen?_ and _were you ever going to_ tell us _or were we just supposed to figure it out on our own?_. It stops, for a second, because it looks like Buck might be crying, his shoulders shaking and arms tight around Eddie’s back, until he throws his head back and lets out a howl of laughter.

“Okay, one question at a time,” he says, once he’s recovered and his friends stop looking offended. He shares a look with Eddie that more than likely contains an entire conversation. “One,” he starts, “about eight months ago, but we told Bobby about six months ago-” and at this, he’s cut off by an indignant squawk from...someone, and Bobby gently saying that it wasn’t his story to tell. Buck pushes on as though it hadn’t happened, “and if we’re being honest with ourselves it had _been_ starting about a year and a half before that.”

“We finally figured it out after the well incident,” Eddie adds, and Buck’s arms somehow curl even tighter around him. “Still took us a couple months to really get our shit together, though,” he says, then notices Christopher is standing next to Athena and groans, dropping his head to Buck’s shoulder.

Chris and Buck share a gleeful smile at this, and Buck finishes the story. “We’ve been trying to tell you all for the past few months,” he says, and holds up a hand when everyone starts to protest again, “it’s just that none of you all realized that my moving in with them and, like, fully becoming Chris’ co-parent wasn’t exactly a platonic thing to do.”

There’s silence, for a moment, then Chimney nods. “Yeah, okay. Maybe we’re the idiots here,” he concedes.

“Can we have cake now?” Christopher asks, setting Buck off into another round of laughter.

“Yeah, buddy, let’s go eat,” Buck says, tapping Eddie’s side as he shifts over to allow them both to stand and follow the group back onto the loft.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in like an hour and a half but the feedback from my beta was, "cute story, characters are Dumb, it's great" so I'm not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth. or something.  
> this work is basically the comic relief of this series, it's part of the timeline but can be read as a standalone and all the other works I have planned for this series are heavier, so if that's not your vibe remember to check out the tags before you read further  
> anyways, if you'd like to chat you can find me on tumblr at [the-sneering-menagerie](https://the-sneering-menagerie.tumblr.com). thanks for reading!


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